Five police officers from Columbus, Ohio shot and killed a knife-wielding man in Milwaukee Tuesday, several blocks outside the security perimeter for the Republican National Convention.
Milwaukee police said the shooting occurred around 1:10 p.m. near the intersection of 14th and Vliet Streets, about 10 blocks west of the Fiserv Forum where the RNC is underway. During a press conference late Tuesday, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said officers with the Columbus Division of Police were on a bicycle patrol and were participating in a “briefing” near where the shooting occurred.
“The officers observed a subject armed with a knife in each hand engaged in an altercation with another unarmed individual,” Norman said.
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In body camera footage released by police, officers can be heard commanding the man to drop the knife as they charged toward him. Norman said the officers shot the man with the knives when he lunged at the other individual with his weapons.
“This was a situation in where somebody’s life was in immediate danger,” Norman said.
A statement from the Milwaukee Police Department said the man who was killed was 43-years-old. They haven’t released his name yet.
Police said two knives were recovered at the scene.
A statement released by a police union in Columbus, Ohio, confirmed members of the Columbus Division of Police were involved in the shooting. The names of those officers have also not been released yet.
The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team is now leading the investigation, with the Greenfield Police Department as the lead agency. Norman said the officers involved are cooperating.
Thousands of officers from around the country are in Milwaukee providing security for the RNC. Officers with the Columbus Division of Police could be seen in downtown Milwaukee during a large protest on the first day of the convention.
After the shooting, large numbers of squad cars and police on foot, horseback and bicycles had closed off Vliet Street Tuesday afternoon, and yellow police tape blocked access to the park.
Residents of nearby homes, and of the tent encampment, gathered outside the taped area watching the scene.
About 20 people were watching from 15th Street and Juneau Avenue next to the park.
Victor Evans of Milwaukee said he and others in the group saw the shooting and knew both the man killed and the person he had been arguing with.
Evans said the men both lived in the tent encampment nearby. Evans, who said he had until recently also lived in the encampment, said a group of people were gathered in King Park Tuesday afternoon. He said there are often people there in the afternoon because a nearby aid agency gives out meals and offers shelter.
According to Evans, the man killed — who he knew by the nickname Jehovah — was in an argument with a second man in the street. He said he saw Jehovah had a small knife with about a 4-inch blade in his hand.
Evans said a group of about 20 police on bicycles were already in the park when the fight began. He said police yelled “drop the knife” and then opened fire after Jehovah turned toward them and then back toward the man he was arguing with.
Evans angrily described the shooting as unnecessary, saying he believed multiple officers fired weapons. If police hadn’t been there, he said, he believed the group of friends would have simply broken up the fight.
Evans said police took the second person in the dispute into custody, and said officers did chest compressions on the person who was shot.
Another man, who did not want to give his name, said he did not witness the shooting but heard a series of shots “like a string of firecrackers going off.”
Eva Welch, co-director of the homeless outreach group Street Angels, said she knew the man as “Ja.” She said she saw him Monday during a street outreach event in the area.
“He was in a good mood, he was happy. He came over and grabbed a water from us; we gave him extra water for his dog. He was smiling,” Welch said.
“He was always a pleasure to see,” she said.
Welch said she was concerned that the shooting involved officers outside of Milwaukee.
“I just feel like our police (Milwaukee police) know these folks, they know what’s going on over here, they know people are suffering,” she said.
Vaun Mayes, a Milwaukee community activist, said he doesn’t believe any outside law enforcement agencies should be operating outside of the security perimeter.
“If this is the help that they’re going to give us, we don’t want it,” Mayes said. “It is not needed.”
“We do not need you here, that’s not the help that they (city) asked for,” he added.
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