Shoot Out in Chaotic Milwaukee

Yesterday afternoon, Milwaukee police and an unidentified man had a shoot out on a city street.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Gunfire erupted again on Milwaukee's north side Tuesday, this time between two gang-unit police officers and a gunman, who was shot and killed.

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said the unidentified man was walking in the middle of the street at N. 28th and W. Chambers streets just before 4 p.m. when he was stopped by uniformed police and asked for his identification.

"He had his hands in his pockets, they demanded he withdraw his hands from his pockets, and when he did he produced a revolver," Flynn told reporters about an hour after the incident.

The man ignored orders to drop the weapon and he fired at the officers, Flynn said. The two officers returned fire, striking the man. It's unknown how many times the man was hit and how many shots were fired.

Flynn said that officers found unloaded casings in the revolver used by the gunman.

Flynn said the two District 7 officers - ages 27 and 28 - immediately began performing CPR on the unidentified man, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. The officers were not injured.

The two officers involved will be placed on administrative leave, which is standard for officer-involved shootings, while the incident is investigated by the Police Department and the Milwaukee County district attorney's office.

Flynn said the officers have been on the force for four and three years, respectively.

Police canvassed the neighborhood, and Flynn said some "independent witnesses" were identified whose version of events appears to confirm the officers' accounts.

"What I've learned is that we have courageous officers who want to protect life as well as save it," Flynn said. "They engaged in a situation where they used force, as necessary, and tried to save the life of someone that may have just tried to take theirs."

..."The gangs have just gone rampant, and they have been left unchecked. It's chaos. There has to be a different way," Roosevelt Sanders said. "Some taxpayers here want to walk out their door and not have to worry about getting shot at."

"I see someone lost their life over nothing," said his son, Joavon Sanders. "Some people don't like the police and they start shooting at them, and that's wrong."

Roosevelt Sanders' frustration is completely justified.

This sort of lawlessness has been left unchecked.

Obviously, things can't change overnight, but I hope that Ed Flynn is tough enough to bring some degree of order back to the city.

No one should have to worry about getting shot at as they walk out their door.

As Flynn has stressed, people in the community need to partner with the police to better their troubled neighborhoods or prevent their changing neighborhoods from declining into chaos.

There has to be cooperation on the part of Milwaukee residents. Cooperation with the police is vital to tackling the problems of crime and violence currently eating away at the city.