Juneteenth Day Violent Closing Ceremonies

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."

--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Milwaukee's Juneteenth Day festivities, a celebration commemorating the end of slavery in America, include food and music and violence.

Yesterday was yet another violent Juneteenth Day. For the second year in a row, thugs acted like thugs do and turned a celebration into a poor reflection on Milwaukee's African-American community.

As the media have pointed out, most of the day was relatively calm. Except for some relatively minor skirmishes here and there, the festival had been peaceful and a success. It wasn't until it was time for the crowd to disperse that "Thugs gone wild" broke out.

Technically, the violence didn't occur during the Juneteenth Day gathering, but it's splitting hairs to distinguish between what happened before, during, and after.

The fact is thugs have given Juneteenth Day a bad name. The festival is becoming synonymous with violence.

Actually, the thugs have accomplished more than that. They've given Milwaukee's African-American community a bad name.

That's not fair, but that's the perception that the images of the rioting leave -- the legacy of thugs.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The city's Juneteenth festivities were marred by violence Tuesday, after a man was pulled from his car and beaten and a police officer injured while trying to break up a large-scale fight after the festival let out.

It was the second year in a row that police in riot gear were used to disperse the crowds.

While the event was largely peaceful and calm during the day, spurts of chaos ensued as police in riot gear attempted to disperse large groups of rowdy festival goers who ignored orders to leave, said Anne E. Schwartz, Milwaukee Police Department spokeswoman.

"During the day crowd was very well behaved and everything was fine throughout the afternoon. Unfortunately at closing time everything came unhinged and there were some problems," Schwartz said.

After the festival winded down around 6 p.m. a large group of festival goers leaving the area attacked at least two cars, one of which drivers was pulled from his vehicle and beaten near N. 1st and W. Burleigh, Schwartz said.

Footage captured by WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) showed a large group of people who surrounded and jumped on a car stuck in traffic and smashed out its windows. That car's driver escaped unharmed, the station reported.

(Watch the report.)

Next the crowd targeted another vehicle, smashing in the hood and trunk and shattering its windshield, the station reported.

The driver got out and was attacked, being thrown to the ground and kicked in the head, Schwartz said.

Around the same time a large fight started in the area between groups of girls and then grew larger as more people got involved, she added.

Police in riot gear attempted to disperse the crowd who resisted, Schwartz said.

An officer wearing a face shield who tried to break up the fight was hit by one of the girls in the face. The shield shattered and the officer was cut by the shards, requiring stitches, Schwartz said.

Well, this is a pretty picture, isn't it?

The thousands of people that enjoyed the festival and behaved like civilized members of society need to be differentiated from the thugs. They don't deserve to be lumped in with the sociopaths.

Festival organizers and responsible festival goers deserve better.

What a slap in the face it is to all of them that the thugs couldn't and/or wouldn't control themselves!

A festival that ends with a violent mob requiring police in riot gear to subdue them is not a positive for Milwaukee's African-American community.

Watch the video. The scenes are awful.

There are parish festivals every weekend in the city.

They don't conclude with police in riot gear.

Even the much larger ethnic festivals on Milwaukee's lakefront manage to remain peaceful as well.

Polish Fest kicks off on Friday and runs through Sunday.

I'd be very surprised if there are any problems that warrant police in riot gear being called in to restore order.

What can be done about the now annual violent Juneteenth Day closing ceremonies?

What can be done to prevent the rioting other than cancelling the festival altogether?

Nothing.

Thugs will be thugs and there's no shortage of them in Milwaukee.

Yesterday's violence makes one wonder why the Common Council barely managed to pass an ordinance to tackle gang-related loitering. It squeaked through on an 8-6 vote. (I assume had the honorable Ald. Michael McGee been there to vote it would have been even closer.)

Will Mayor Tom Barrett veto that ordinance as he promised he would the last time it was up for a vote?

I certainly hope not.

Yesterday's events at Juneteenth Day and at City Hall clarified something:

There are plenty of violent thugs in Milwaukee.

There are plenty of people in Milwaukee willing to act as apologists for the thugs.

There is a lack of leadership in city government when it comes to controlling the thugs, getting them off the streets, and protecting the good people.
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*UPDATE*

More details here.

----A 33-year-old man has a broken tooth and cuts all over his face after a group of teenagers pulled him from his car and beat him.

Police say hundreds of teenagers started kicking the man's car. Today's TMJ 4 video from the scene shows the teenagers damaging at least several cars.


----A few blocks away a group of girls started fighting. When police went to break up the fight near 1st and Auer, the department says a 17-year-old girl started punching and kicking a 15-year veteran officer.

She hit him in his face shield, which shattered into his face. He needed three stitches and has scratches on his neck. That 17-year-old was arrested and police are recommending charges for battery to a police officer.


----Police say there was also a fight earlier in the day in the 3000 block of north 1st Street. In that case, three women were fighting. Police say a 15-year-old boy tried to break up the fight when an 18-year-old man got involved in it.

According to police, the 18-year-old got angry, walked away and told the boy he was coming back with a gun. The 18-year-old did in fact return with a gun and fired five shots into a crowd where the boy was standing. The 15-year-old's 39-year-old uncle was hit in the shoulder. He was treated and released from a local hospital.

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*UPDATE*

Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration didn't result in any deaths.

That wasn't the case in Austin, Texas.
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*UPDATE*

Once again, Milwaukee makes the Drudge Report.

Not only the reputation of the local Juneteenth Day celebration has been tarnished due to the lawlessness of Milwaukee's thug culture; the city's image is taking a big hit.

To Mayor Tom Barrett:

Ready to call the problem of violent crime in Milwaukee a crisis yet?

No?

Not yet?

What will it take?

If only Milwaukee had streetcars everything would be so much better.
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*UPDATE*

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane, resident race-baiter, minimizes the violence as the result of a few "knuckleheads."

Like most folks who went to Juneteenth Day, I had a good time at the annual festival along Martin Luther King Drive.

Also, like most folks with any knowledge of the way Juneteenth Day gets covered by the media, I also realized if there was any negative event during the approximately ten-hour long festival, some people in town would use it as yet another example of why black folks in Milwaukee are such a problem.

...Most years, anyone who goes to Juneteenth Day knows it is largely a positive event. But they also know in the last half-hour or so, you have to be on watch for the knuckleheads who don't understand how to just have their fun and go home.

What???

That's nuts.

Kane is literally saying that the good people know that the bad people in their community are going to get violent so they plan ahead and leave before the "knuckleheads" start trouble.

No big deal.

Kane continues:

I'll be writing about this in the future, mainly to address the clearly racist comments from some readers who appear to wait for negative stories like this one to appear so they can send me e-mails that say "black people are all thugs and animals" who don't deserve to be treated like regular people.

The people who send Kane such despicable emails are as bad as the thugs responsible for soiling the community.

Kane and every decent person should be outraged at such statements.

Every decent person should also be outraged over the behavior of the thugs.

No one, including Kane, should be dismissing the violence as the work of a "few bad apples."

Milwaukee's Thug Culture thrives because community leaders and apologists like Kane prefer to look the other way.

Crisis? What crisis?