'Get the hell out of our town': Mourners for man shot by Columbus police condemn Milwaukee officials for hosting RNC

At a vigil Tuesday night for the Milwaukee man shot and killed by out-of-state police officers, mourners decried local officials for allowing Republicans to hold their national convention in Milwaukee.

"I love my city, but I can't say the city loves us back, time and time again," said Alan Chavoya with the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said five police officers from Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed a man armed with knives early Tuesday afternoon, just blocks from the Republican National Convention. He died at the scene.

The man was identified as Samuel Sharpe Jr. by a first cousin, Linda Sharpe, who spoke to reporters at the scene of the shooting. He was living in what activists at Tuesday's vigil called a "tent city" at King Park.

About 4,000 out-of-state officers are in town for the convention to help with security. At a brief press conference shortly before the vigil, Norman said the officers involved in the incident were in their assigned zone related to RNC duties for potential demonstration response.

Columbus police released bodycam footage from the shooting later Tuesday. Video shows several officers noticing a fight unfolding nearby at North 14th and West Vliet streets. "He's got a knife," one officer says in the video.

The officers drew their weapons and ran toward Sharpe and the other man while yelling commands of "Drop the knife!" Once officers were within feet of Sharpe, they fired off multiple shots.

The situation unfolded rapidly, with 15 seconds passing from when officers first noticed Sharpe was armed with a knife to when they fired shots.

Norman strongly defended the out-of-state officers in his press conference.

"Someone's life was in danger," he said. "These officers who are not from this area took upon themselves to act to save someone's life today."

The officers were in their assigned zone related to RNC duties for potential demonstration response, Norman said.

The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, led by the Greenfield Police Department, is investigating the fatal shooting.

Other speakers at Tuesday's vigil emphasized they've expressed to officials that hosting the convention and increasing the police presence in Milwaukee was not the right decision.

"The city nonstop told us that it was going to be the people like us that caused issues during the Republican National Convention, and we warned them for years that it would be out-of-state police that would cause issues," Chavoya said.

"We told them this would happen," he added.

He said that Monday's peaceful march against the RNC "showed how we controlled ourselves and we keep us safe. But it's on the city. Blood is on the city's hands."

Sharpe's family was at the vigil but declined to comment.

Street Angels, a mobile homeless outreach based in Milwaukee, met Sharpe in April, said Eva Welch, co-founder and co-director. Street Angels brought food and water to that encampment two nights a week. Welch said that Sharpe was always grateful and polite and that he loved his dog and treated her like his daughter.

“When people camp together, they become a community," she said. "They become a family. We’re concerned with our other friends as well. Many of them witnessed it."The encampment at 14th and Vliet streets is well-known among MPD, Welch said. People have lived there in tents for about seven years.

Welch said if MPD officers had responded to the situation instead of those from Columbus, no one would have died Tuesday.“To be honest, this was the biggest fear that we had about the RNC," she said. "I don’t understand why there were out-of-state police officers monitoring our city."

Pastor Radontae Ashford with Infinite Church said he was part of a group that helped feed those living in the encampment just a few days ago.

"Tonight, when we go home to our warm houses and meals, I want everybody out here to remember that there are people living in tents in this community," he said. "One-tenth of what was spent one day at the RNC today could have changed their lives for five or six years."

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley released a statement late Tuesday, saying: “My heart goes out to the families, the community, and all those affected by the tragic events that occurred outside King Park today. ... As we have seen in the past, the trauma and grief that residents are currently experiencing will impact their day-to-day lives long after today. We must keep working to stop the cycle of violence and foster safer neighborhoods for every resident, family, and child in Milwaukee."

Present at the vigil were family of other Black men who have died by gunfire from police, including the mother of Dontre Hamilton, a man with mental health issues who was shot by a Milwaukee police officer at Red Arrow Park in 2014.

Maria Hamilton criticized the actions of police. "Police departments do not de-escalate," she said. "The first thing they want to do is take lives. But our lives are important to us."

Hamilton stood with the more than 100 people at Tuesday's vigil arguing this shooting was preventable had it not been for the thousands of police in town for the RNC.

"I know that we got another 72 hours of this invasion," Hamilton said. "Do what you came to do and get the hell out of our town."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: At Milwaukee shooting vigil, mourners decry RNC police presence