Chaos in Milwaukee after riots break out after a police shooting.

A police car damaged in the riot. Police handout/Reuters. 

Milwaukee Wisconsin was rocked by riots after police shot and killed an armed man. Reuters. Rioters threw bricks, fired guns and committed several acts of arson. Up to 100 rioters struck the city. The suspect killed by the police had been pulled over for suspicious activity. The suspects then fled. One of them was armed with a stolen gun with 23 rounds in it and was shot by the police and the other was arrested peacefully. The incident was caught on a bodycam that the officer was wearing and the incident is going to be investigated by the police, not local cops. One officer was wounded during the riot when a brick was thrown at his police car. At least five businesses were burned to the ground, along with a few police cars. Businesses were left to burn due to concerns about the safety of firefighters due to multiple gunshots. Three arrests were made in the riots. 

My Comment:

I followed and live tweeted the riot as it happened. This strikes rather close to home for me. I live in Wisconsin. I won't even pretend to be objective in this case, this riot disgusts me. Though I am quite far away from Milwaukee I do know people that live there. From what I understand they are all safe since the rioting was confined to this one neighborhood. For now at least. As for what I though as the riot was happening?

I don't care why the people were rioting in #Milwaukee. Once you burn down buildings you are the bad guys no matter what.

— Jeff H (@politicswarblog) August 14, 2016

 I have to say, following the story all night on Twitter and watching it on local news coverage, the Reuters report is leaving a lot of what happened out. People were going absolutely insane. I heard multiple incidents of gunfire, people in cars getting attacked, and several incidents of looting. Most of the media is calling this protests and unrest. It was nothing of the sort. This was a riot, and a race riot at that. Calling it anything else is an insult to the victims and good people that lived in that neighborhood.

I have little sympathy for the rioters or even the peaceful protesters. At this point we have very little indication whether the officer involved shooting was a bad one or not. The rumor mill is running wild saying that the man who was shot was actively running away from the cops, but there is no proof of that whatsoever. He was shot by running but the news conference given by the mayor said he was shot in the chest. Besides, someone can be running away and still be pointing a gun at a cop. Even if it was a bad shoot though, nothing justifies arson, battery and looting.

The good news is that there is bodycam footage available. I'm ambivalent about the effectiveness of bodycams but in this case they may vindicate or damn the officer involved here. I doubt that would matter much to the people pissed off, they have a tendency to not believe their lying eyes even after clear visual evidence of justification is revealed. But at the very least, there is video that should help answer questions.

Indeed, it looks to me like the Milwaukee PD is doing everything right. Not only did they have bodycams but they are also not conducting the investigation to the shooting. Instead, the state government is taking on that task. Bodycams and independent investigations are two of the demands that anti-police groups like Black Lives Matter want, so why are they complaining? It is as if any police shooting of a black male is justification for rioting, no matter how seriously the police take such things.

I also want to point something out. The police and mayor said that the suspect was armed with a stolen gun with 23 rounds in the magazine. That is suspicious as hell to me. Though there are magazines that hold 23 rounds, they are fairly rare and mostly for things like shotguns, and .22 pistols. Much more common are 30 round mags for 9mm pistols, and that tells me that whoever this guy was might have shot his gun that night. If the magazine was 30 rounds and there were only 23 in the chamber, that's the best explanation. I doubt he would have only loaded 23 rounds into a 30 round mag. If he didn't shoot at the cops, then who was he shooting at? I know that Milwaukee was having a violent weekend anyways, but perhaps this suspect was a murder suspect as well? Pure speculation on my part, but it still stinks to high heavens to me.

I hope that tonight was the only night of rioting but I am not at all optimistic. Why? The usual suspects are going to show up. Various leftist group, who participated in riots in Chicago, Baltimore, Ferguson and San Diego, are going to use this police shooting as an opportunity to attack. I am sure Black Lives Matter is already there, but I am also expecting a bunch of communists, anarchists and other extreme left wing people to come to Milwaukee in order to make an already bad situation worse. Remember, Milwaukee is close to both Madison and Chicago, both major centers for these kinds of left wing groups. I am fully expecting them to encourage more riots and destruction.

This event is going to be politicized. No doubt that the "victim" of the shooting will have his family contacted by the Democrats so they can hammer home their conspiracy theory of police violence and racism, which largely doesn't exist. I also think that this will be used by Donald Trump as well. Violence in our cities and attacks on our police help him because he is the law and order candidate. I won't speak for everyone in my state but I personally hate seeing this kind of violence and destruction so close to home. I'll vote for a candidate that won't pander to the rioters every time over one that does.

Not only do I have friends who live in Milwaukee, I also have a lot of friends that are cops in the state. Most of those cops live and work in the Fox cities and the Green Bay area, but I worry that the disorder might spread to this part of the state as well. That seems rather unlikely, but it's still in the back of my mind. I don't want to have to worry about them having to shoot some idiot or get a brick thrown at them for stupid reasons. I am hoping that this situation fizzles out sooner rather then later. But given Black Lives Matter and the other various left wing rabble rousers, I am not hopeful at all...

I also have to say that the most disgusting thing about this whole situation is that the rioters prevented firefighters from putting out the fires. Of course, the purpose of arson is to destroy buildings, stopping the firefighters helped that goal. But there is just something so utterly wrong about threatening the people that are out there to help us. That's just as true for the police but firefighters are heroes too, heroes that go to work unarmed. The idea that they couldn't do their jobs last night because they risked getting shot is just completely vulgar and evil.