Police use of force experts react to Milwaukee shooting: 'The officer had no choice'
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Police experts who viewed body camera footage of Columbus police officers shooting and killing a homeless man wielding knives near the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee said the shooting appeared to be "reasonable."
The unidentified Columbus Division of Police officers shot and killed Samuel Sharpe Jr. after they noticed him wielding knives while officers were having a meeting in a nearby parking lot. The officers were part of a contingency of 4,000 out-of-town police officers providing security, traffic and public safety services for the RNC.
Milwaukee residents and activist decried the shooting this week, saying it would not have happened but for the presence of out-of-town cops unfamiliar with the city and its people. But Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther said he thinks the officers acted appropriately, a sentiment echoed by Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman.
The Columbus police officers were in their assigned zone for potential demonstration response when they shot and killed Sharpe, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said Tuesday.
Here's what police experts and activists had to say about what happened.
What do experts think?
Thomas Aveni, a former police officer and the executive director of the Police Policy Study Council, which studies police use of deadly force and complex justice issues, said after viewing the video that the shooting appeared to be "reasonable".
"You have a moving target at an extended distance where a Taser is probably going to be extremely ineffective and given the distance between those two individuals, they had maybe about a second until the guy closed and stabbed the other individual, there really wasn't any time to react in any other way," he said. "Verbal commands have failed. If anything, the guy seemed more motivated by verbal commands."
W. Ken Katsaris, a former police instructor and expert witness for Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, said it appeared "the officer had no choice" in the situation after he reviewed the footage.
He said there was no time to use a stun gun, which is usually deployed with "lethal backup" with another officer standing by with a gun ready. Even if the officer had tried to use a stun gun, its darts have to hit specific body parts and not get caught on clothing to be effective, something that would "not be possible" while the officer was running, Katsaris said.
"When somebody's taking a knife to another person, put yourself in the shoes of the other person," Katsaris said. "Somebody's coming at them. There's a police officer saying, 'Gee, should I shoot? I wonder what I ought to do. I mean, let's see if he nicks him first. Maybe it won't get him in the heart. Maybe it'll just be a nick. Maybe it won't be so bad.' That's not what police officers do."
What does the body camera footage show?
Body cam footage of the shooting shows officers discussing protests in a parking lot about a mile outside the RNC's pedestrian perimeter before noticing Sharpe wielding a knife near another man in the street. The officers approach him with guns drawn, yelling for him to drop the knife.
Sharpe appears to turn toward the officers before turning back to the man in front of him. He appears to lunge toward the other man with a knife in each hand before officers open fire, killing him. The entire exchange lasted around 15 seconds.
The five Columbus police officers involved in the shooting returned to Ohio. The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team, led by the Greenfield Police Department, is investigating the shooting. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther of Columbus said the city would support the investigation.
Community decries out-of-town police brought to RNC
The shooting of Samuel Sharpe Jr. prompted outrage from mourners and activists who criticized the officers' actions and blamed the city of Milwaukee for bringing in out-of-town police, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
"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," Alan Chavoya of the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said at a Tuesday vigil for Sharpe.
"Police departments do not de-escalate," Maria Hamilton, the mother of Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by Milwaukee police in 2014, said. "The first thing they want to do is take lives. But our lives are important to us."
Eva Welch, the co-founder and co-director of homeless outreach company Street Angels, said if Milwaukee officers had responded to the shooting, no one would have died.
“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."
Milwaukee police officials said before the RNC they did not plan to use out-of-town officers for "forward-facing" roles that might interact with the community.
Milwaukee police didn't consider the Columbus bicycle unit that shot and killed Sharpe to be a forward-facing unit, since it was a specialty unit dedicated to controlling traffic and responding to demonstrations. After Tuesday's shooting, all out-of-town bicycle units will have a Milwaukee police representative.
Columbus Division of Police officers have shot a total of eight people — including the Milwaukee shooting — in 2024, and seven have died. Milwaukee police have been involved in two shootings this year, including a shootout with a wanted man on Thursday, according to reports and data compiled by the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence.
Sharpe was homeless and living in a tent city in King Park. Pastor Radontae Ashford with Infinite Church said he helped feed people living in the encampment just days before the shooting.
"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 at a Tuesday vigil for Sharpe. "One-tenth of what was spent one day at the RNC today could have changed their lives for five or six years."
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Experts react to Columbus police shooting in Milwaukee near RNC
