Police in Columbus, Ohio, had been looking into two of the five cops who shot and killed a man in Milwaukee for possible use of force in the past.
The Columbus Dispatch was the first to disclose that in 2017, after shooting and killing a driver who accelerated during a traffic check and dragged Mason along with the car, Nicholas Mason, a veteran of the department since 2007, was free of any criminal misconduct.
In 2020, a settlement of $45,000 was reached after six policemen, including Adam Groves, were sued in 2016 for unlawful arrest and excessive use of force, as reported by the Dispatch.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mason and Groves were briefed at King Park, approximately one mile outside the Republican National Convention security zone, with a group of thirteen officers working in a bicycle unit. While there, they observed two men on West Vliet Street, close to North 14th Street, who seemed ready to fight.
Officers rushed over to the two guys as soon as they spotted one with a knife, according to footage from body cameras, and yelled at him to put down the weapons. After the armed man kept approaching the other man, the five officers opened fire, as shown in the video.
Samuel Sharpe Jr., a resident of the nearby encampment, was named by witnesses and relatives as the deceased man. Family members and Milwaukee activists have spoken out strongly against the involvement of out-of-state cops working for the Republican National Committee following the incident.
Outside agencies that are helping with the RNC have signed an agreement stating that officers involved cannot have a personal legal history of being found guilty of any constitutional violations or have received complaints about the use of excessive, unreasonable, or unnecessary force in the past five years.
It does not appear that the two previous occurrences involving Columbus cops are grounds for disqualification according to the agreement.
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The other officers named by Columbus police as being engaged in the shooting incident are Karl Eiginger, Canaan Dick, and Austin Enos. The five cops were removed from their duties at the RNC following the incident, as stated by the Milwaukee police on Wednesday.
Meeting with protest organizations multiple times in the months preceding the RNC, Milwaukee sent written answers to concerns voiced during those discussions, including how officers serving in the RNC were vetted.
“The officers assisting with the RNC are full duty and fully trained,” the city’s answer asserted. Anyone associated with the insurrection on January 6th has been apprehended if they were an officer. Meeting expectations for fair and impartial policing and procedural justice, the MPD will hold an orientation/training session for officers upon their arrival.
Fatal shootings were probably within the law, according to outside experts on use of force.
It is believed that the out-of-state officers saved a life, according to Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who have defended them.
Johnson has joined other government officials in demanding a “thorough investigation.” A team of investigators from the Milwaukee Area, headed by the Greenfield Police Department, is looking into the shooting death.
Some have said the cops should have brandished a Taser or tried to shoot Sharpe in the arm or leg instead, which would have hurt him more severely.
Authorities in Milwaukee and elsewhere have received extensive training to use lethal force if they detect a threat that could result in death. Aiming for a person’s limbs is not a trained tactic because it raises the likelihood of hitting bystanders instead of the intended victim and there is no certainty that the lethal danger will be stopped, according to experts.
Milwaukee activist Aurelia Ceja stated that the cop “instantly” pulled a gun and did nothing to try to de-escalate the situation after viewing the body camera footage that was published on Tuesday.
What she saw was “escalation,” she declared.
To assess the 30-second video of the incident that was made public on Tuesday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel spoke with two independent specialists on the subject of use-of-force. The two individuals agreed that it seemed like the shooting was within the jurisdiction.
According to Thaddeus Johnson, a former Memphis police officer, assistant professor at George State University, and senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, the cops “were loud, they were giving commands.”.
“I know some people say maybe they could de-escalate,” he said. “That’s a quick moment. Officers don’t have all the information and it’s an imminent threat.”
Tim Dimoff, a police use-of-force expert based in Ohio and former police officer, said the fact that all five officers fired suggested they “all perceived the same problem, the same level of danger and took action.”
“I hate to say it, I believe it is cut and dry. Only because the subject has two knives, only because he started to go towards the other person,” Dimoff said.
Some prominent activists have suggested that if Milwaukee police had been involved, the situation would have ended differently.
Andrew Wagner, the president of the Milwaukee Police Association which represents the department’s rank-and-file officers, was not so sure.
“They realize a person is trying to do great bodily harm to another human being,” he said. “Even if a local officer would’ve recognized him, the threat was still active.”
