Milwaukee officer suffers minor gunshot wound as peaceful protests escalate; minor injury reported
A day of protests in Milwaukee over police-related deaths turned violent overnight as protesters clashed with police on the city's north side early Saturday and at least three nearby businesses were vandalized.
A 38-year-old Milwaukee police officer suffered a minor injury when he was shot around 3:30 a.m. responding to the 200 block of West Locust Street, near the 5th District police station where protesters had gathered.
Police had no information early Saturday on the number of arrests or other injuries. Police Chief Alfonso Morales is expected to hold a briefing Saturday morning.
Crews were seen Saturday cleaning debris at businesses that had been vandalized and looted.
In one case, residents stepped in and helped put out a fire at a Walgreens on North King Drive in Milwaukee's Harambee neighborhood. In another, a Boost Mobile cellphone store was looted.
Traffic at the nearby intersection of N. MLK and W. North Ave. was still at a virtual standstill at 3 a.m. as police dressed in riot gear wound up face-to-face with several hundred protesters, some of whom had spent the day tracing the city on foot and in cars.
Around midnight, the crowd had been ordered to disperse and told they could face arrest if they did not.
It is unclear what happened next, but soon gas was used, sending the crowd scrambling.
Rallies become a rolling march
The first Friday rally began at 1 p.m. outside the Black Historical Society on the corner of N. 27th Street and W. Center St., over the death Monday of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Video of the death of Floyd, 46, after being knelt on by a police officer while he gasped out "I can't breathe," stirred deep outrage across the nation, spawning nights of riots in Minneapolis. Late Friday, there were clashes with police in cities across the nation.
Organizers of the Milwaukee event had exhorted protesters to remain peaceful — and things progressed that way for hours.
The Floyd protest became a march, where protesters briefly shut down Interstate 43 north of downtown, and made stops at the Milwaukee County Courthouse and Milwaukee Police Administration Building before returning to the original location.
Some eventually caravanned to a separate protest on the city's south side, which began at 5 p.m. outside the home of a Milwaukee police officer who has been charged with killing Joel Acevedo, 25, at a party at the officer's house in April.
Officer Michael Mattioli, off-duty at the time of the incident, is accused of putting Acevedo in a fatal "chokehold" during the fight. He has been charged with reckless homicide.
That protest centered on calls for Mattioli to be fired — a matter currently before the Fire and Police Commission — and for others to be charged in the case.
“We cannot stay quiet anymore," said Jose Acevedo, Joel's father, at the rally. "This is not about violence. This is about what is right.”
That rally became a caravan-march that covered a swath of the city's south side, turned toward downtown, and began to shrink.
After a brief stop at Red Arrow Park north of City Hall — the site of the April 2014 death of Dontre Hamilton, who was shot and killed by a Milwaukee police officer — the rolling effort progressed down Brady Street and north on Humboldt Ave. Near Reservoir Park, a few fireworks were even shot off.
Ultimately, a massive lines of cars — horns honking — inched west on North Avenue. In some cases, protesters rode on hoods, in others they held raised fists out open windows.
From there, it moved north up King Drive, approaching the 5th District Police Station, located just off the intersection with W. Locust Street.
Things turned confrontational and, soon, violent.
'I look just like them'
Katherine Mahmoud was awoken in the early hours Saturday by a phone call from the alarm company for her Boost Mobile store. She drove there from her home in Oak Creek to find the building's windows smashed and the store looted.
She was furious about Floyd's death — but also angry at those who destroyed her business.
"If you really care deeply in your heart ... (protest) in silence, go to the courts," she told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter.
It's infuriating, she said, especially as her store has "nothing to do" with what protesters were rallying against.
"I look just like them," she said, before repeatedly asking "Why?"
"Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed about George Floyd. ... It could have been my brother, it could have been my son."
What people need to do is "go above," she said — "change some laws so this won't happen" and law-enforcement officers will be held accountable for their actions.
Meanwhile, the small Fast & Friendly grocery store also sustained damage, and the brick exterior of a nearby Walgreens was scrawled with spraypainted sentiments — "Black Lives Matter" as well as anti-police profanity.
People were seen lifting shopping carts out of a smashed Walgreens window and pushing them down the street. Dozens more carried armfuls of merchandise — Kit-Kats, bags of chips, Diet Coke — through a broken window.
The store's aisles were littered with products stripped from shelves; graffiti was scrawled on walls outside.
A man livestreaming the scene on Facebook entered the store to survey the damage and put out a small fire in one aisle.
"I still live in this community," he said to another woman helping him extinguish the fire.
The alarm inside was sounding and police began responding to the scene at 1:12 a.m. As the man who extinguished the fire was leaving, he was hit by tear gas thrown by police.
“My whole face is on fire right now,” the man told his audience.
“I can’t let a business in my community go down in flames,” he said. “There’s a lot of black people in my community depending on that Walgreens."