Questions remain in shootings ‘It wasn’t going to end well’
One hospitalized, two dead after three incidents
To Hercules Brown Sr., the officers seemed to come out of nowhere.
Brown said he did not notice them as he tried to quell a rowdy group of people who had been cursing and screaming in the Milwaukee neighborhood where he’s lived for 46 years.
He saw his grandson step out of their house and fire shots in the air, trying to disperse the crowd. Officers suddenly appeared and shouted at his grandson.
“He put his hands down to the side, still holding the gun, and he froze like a rock,” Brown said Tuesday.
Then, Brown heard several gunshots and his 37-year-old grandson was dead.
That was Sunday night. Three days earlier, Milwaukee police officers shot a man on a garage rooftop, seriously injuring him and sending him to the hospital.
Aside from preliminary information provided in the hours after each shooting, department officials have not released any more details or answered other questions, citing the ongoing investigation.
“People feel like the police are around to go to trouble and then they cause more,” said Destiny Colvin, who witnessed the first shooting and recorded it on Facebook live.
Although the exact circumstances of each shooting remain unclear, in general, police officers are authorized to use deadly force if they reasonably believe someone poses a threat to officers or to the public.
Milwaukee police declined to give an updated condition report Tuesday for the man who was hospitalized after being shot during a confrontation near N. 29th St. and W. Wisconsin Ave. about 12:45 p.m. Thursday.
Officers received a call of a “subject with a gun” and saw a man matching that armed person’s description, authorities have said. The man ran from police and ended up on a garage rooftop where the confrontation occurred with two officers.
The department has yet to say whether the man was armed or whether a weapon was recovered at the scene. A police spokesman also would not say Tuesday if the shooting was captured on police body-worn cameras and declined to clarify if both officers, or just one, fired shots.
Colvin, the witness who recorded the shooting, said she heard police yelling and telling a man to get off a nearby garage roof. She said she began streaming live on Facebook when she saw the police had drawn their guns.
“I kind of knew it wasn’t going to end well,” she said Tuesday.
Her video shows a man on the roof of a one-story garage attached to another apartment building. Two officers climb up after him and can be heard shouting something. The two officers step closer to the man and then two gunshots can be heard.
Colvin said she believes the man was holding a cell phone when he was shot.
Her 3-year-old daughter, who can be heard on the recording, also saw part of the shooting and Colvin said she plans to get her counseling.
Colvin said she has not been interviewed by detectives yet.
Man shot was legally blind
Relatives of the man shot and killed by Milwaukee police Sunday identified him as Antwon Springer.
Springer lived with Brown, his grandfather, in the 4400 block of N. 39th St. where the shooting occurred about 10 p.m. Sunday. Brown and other relatives said Springer was legally blind.
According to police, officers were sent to the block just north of W. Congress St. about 10 p.m. on a report of a large fight in the street with armed suspects.
Officers arrived and saw a man outside who fired a gun before officers approached him, according to a news release.
“During the ensuing confrontation, the officers fired shots striking the suspect” and police recovered the suspect’s gun, the release stated. Police did not identify the man but said he was a felon.
Online court records show Springer had a felony conviction in 1999 for driving a stolen car and another from 2006 for having a gun even though he was a felon.
Brown said it seemed the police were trying to “project” his grandson was a “bad guy.” He also disputed police characterizations of the fight before the shooting, saying it was a loud verbal altercation.
On Tuesday, Milwaukee police declined to provide any more information about that fight, including what started it, if anyone was seriously injured or if any arrests were made.
Brown also raised questions about a police search of his home, noting the shooting occurred outside. Brown said he witnessed the entire shooting and had yet to be interviewed by authorities.
The Milwaukee County Investigative team is investigating the shooting and is being led by the Wauwatosa Police Department. A Wauwatosa police spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.