Threats Toward Milwaukee Officer Involved In Shooting Surge Online

Residents of Milwaukee’s Sherman Park are condemning the negative perception of their neighborhood after riots broke out last weekend. Dozens of people have been arrested in the neighborhood since Saturday night, following the fatal police shooting of the 23-year-old African-American man Sylville Smith.

But social media posts that helped fuel the violence have intensified and focused on the officer who killed Smith, said Ellen Gabler, an investigative reporter and deputy investigations editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who is reporting on the backlash.

The Journal Sentinel and Associated Press have identified the African-American officer involved in the shooting as 24-year-old Dominique Heaggan. Heaggan attended grade school in Milwaukee and joined the city’s police force as a teenage aide through a program that aims to recruit young people into law enforcement, including minorities.

He has lived near the shooting scene since at least 2012 and was assigned to patrol that area after becoming an officer.

A relative of the man who was killed said Heaggan went to the same high school as Smith, who was shot Saturday after fleeing from a traffic stop. Authorities said he turned toward the officer with a gun.

Rioting erupted later on the largely black north side.

Shortly after Heaggan’s name was released it became widely shared on social media.

“That’s when some people started suggesting that the officer was going to ‘get what was coming to him,’” Gabler said.

The officer’s picture has been shared thousands of times on social media, Gabler said. She’s also found many people posting comments to try to defuse the hostile rhetoric.

“There are so many discussions going on, on social media, especially on Facebook,” Gabler said, adding many of these posts are urging people to stop the threats.