“There were black citizens on both juries, mind you.”
Dominique Heaggen-Brown—a former Milwaukee police officer—was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide in the shooting death of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. The shooting occurred last year when police officers approached Smith’s rental vehicle on suspicion of drug dealing. Smith was armed with a gun as he fled police officers.
Video from body cameras shows the suspect running with the weapon as Heaggen-Brown opened fire on Smith twice. While the prosecution agreed the first shot was justified, they argued the second shot warranted criminal charges. The defense showed that Heaggen-Brown had a 1.6-second reaction time between the first and second shots—clearly not adequate time to assess the situation after pursuing an armed suspect.
The incident sparked riots and violence in Milwaukee among the African-American community, who largely felt the shooting was a case of police brutality. I watched footage of the so-called “protests” that occurred and was shocked at how militant participants were toward police officers. Several people were shouting profanities at the officers and yelling in their faces. Upon the arrest of those individuals, crowds began their tired chants of how horrible police are, white people are evil—the same old song and dance a lot of people use to deflect responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of ill-trained police officers who use lethal force. I’ll even venture to say that I was shocked that the police officer who opened fire on Philando Castile was acquitted. While activists and social justice warriors alike vilify law enforcement and condemn the justice system, they seem to be overlooking the fact that these officers were acquitted by a jury of their peers. There were black citizens on both juries, mind you.
I have also noticed that in this particular case, there is nowhere near the amount of outrage as was the case with the Philando Castile shooting. I scoured a few social media pages and social justice warrior websites and didn’t find very much outrage. In fact, the verdict was only briefly mentioned in passing. It doesn’t quite fit the narrative of racist white police officers gunning down black men in cold blood.
Some places pushed theories about the shooting, including one website that claimed Heaggen-Brown had a personal vendetta against Smith. Either way, the family of Sylville Smith has reportedly decided to press forward with a civil case against the city and Heaggen-Brown.
With social media bringing news sharing to a whole new frontier, the public has easy access to videos showing many of these shootings. The jury in the case of the Sylville Smith shooting was given frame-by-frame photographs of the incident in an attempt to demonstrate a timeline that left room for assessment when there was none.
It’s sad to see the level of scrutiny and animosity toward police officers in 2017. I have an inkling that no case of lethal forced used by a police officer will ever be justified in the eyes of the almighty social justice warrior.
