The family of Sylville Smith filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against former Milwaukee police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, the same day the ex-cop was found not guilty of homicide for fatally shooting Smith a year ago.
A former Milwaukee police officer has been acquitted of reckless homicide in the fatal shooting a black man that sparked riots last summer.
Heaggan-Brown, who was chasing Smith on foot along with another officer, shot him once in the arm as Smith rose from the ground, grabbed the gun and turned partly toward the officers as he threw the gun over the fence.
Heaggan-Brown's attorney, Jonathan Smith, countered that his client was simply protecting his life and the life of his fellow officer.
The sexual assault claim was filed by a man who told investigators that he was sexually assaulted by Heaggan-Brown two days after the shooting of Smith.
The case brings to light how police, regardless of color and gender, are often protected when they're involved in shootings with Black victims.
Given the brief interval between the shots, this strikes me as cutting things too fine.
He was also cleared of two lesser charges regarding the case.
Police body camera videos - some of which were not released to the public - were integral to the investigation.
In Heaggan-Brown's bodycam video, he began chasing Smith immediately after stepping out of his patrol vehicle.
Using frame-by-frame video from the officers' body cameras, prosecutors argued that while the first shot fired by Mr. Smith was reasonable, the second shot was not. "It was only one person that took my son's life and that's Heaggan-Brown".
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District Attorney John Chisholm says he has no regrets about prosecuting the case.
Smith's shooting triggered two nights of protests last August, during which police arrested at least 14 people as protesters reportedly burned businesses and attacked news reporters. The second hit him in the chest. The time between the two shots was 1.69 seconds.
You can then hear Heaggan-Brown calmly explain what happened.
Heagann-Brown was neither fired nor suspended after killing Smith.
"They took off as soon as they see us", Heaggan-Brown said.
Prosecutors said his first shot was justified, but not the second, according to WISN.
Heaggan-Brown was sacked two months later after he was charged in an unrelated sexual assault.
Cynthia Greenwood, a friend of Smith's family, was upset at the verdict _ though not shocked.
Data shows 82 officers nationwide have been charged with murder or manslaughter for on-duty fatal shootings since 2005, said Philip Stinson, a criminologist at Ohio's Bowling Green State University. The officer is also African-American.
Heaggan-Brown's attorneys argued that he had to make a split-second decision.
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