Officer shooting in Wisconsin heads to jury

MILWAUKEE — The prosecutor who charged a former Milwaukee police officer with first-degree reckless homicide in the killing of a 23-year-old black man told jurors Tuesday the man was defenseless when he was fatally shot last year.

But an attorney defending Dominique Heaggan-brown against the charge countered that the former officer acted in self-defense because the man was armed when a brief foot chase began after a traffic stop.

Attorneys delivered closing arguments Tuesday.

Smith’s death at the hands of Heaggan-brown on Aug. 13 sparked two nights of rioting in the Sherman Park neighborhood and highlighted the strained relationship between police and African-americans in the city. But the case is different from recent high-profile police shootings that have inspired a national conversation about how officers interact with African-americans: Heaggan-brown and Smith are both black and from the north side of the city where the shooting occurred.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm told jurors Heaggan-brown didn’t need to use deadly force against Smith, who had thrown away the gun he was carrying. Heaggan-brown shot Smith on his right bicep as he threw the gun away over a fence. He shot him again 1.69 seconds later, this time in the chest, when Smith fell on his back with his legs in the air.

“He’s in the most vulnerable position that he can possibly be in,” Chisholm said. “He looks like a child.”

Heaggan-brown and two other officers had approached Smith’s rental car because it was parked more than a foot from the curb, and police believed a drug deal was happening. The officers were making their way back to their district station when they decided to initiate one last traffic stop.

Chisholm has said that Heaggan-brown was justified when he fired the first shot but argues the second shot was unnecessary.