King Park neighborhood residents grapple with Sharpe shooting and a growing population in need
Twenty-four hours after a Milwaukee man was fatally shot by police officers from Ohio, the neighborhood around the shooting was abuzz Wednesday. Music blared, some people danced, others cried and shouted for justice, and friends of Samuel Sharpe Jr. drifted by a makeshift memorial where he died.
A group of 13 officers from Columbus, Ohio, in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, were in King Park Tuesday, holding a briefing when they spotted Sharpe and another man appearing poised to fight in the eastbound lane of busy West Vliet Street.
Sharpe, 43, was armed with two knives, body-cam video from one of the Columbus officers shows. The officers ran about 50 yards to where the two men were squaring off and ordered Sharpe to drop the knives he held in each hand, the video shows. Sharpe continued to move toward the man and five officers fired on him, it shows. The officers administered CPR after the shooting, but Sharpe died on the scene, according to several law enforcement sources.
Officials including Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the shooting was justified and that the officers may have saved the other man by intervening and shooting Sharpe.
The man Sharpe was lunging toward with the knives has not been identified by police. Several people in the neighborhood Tuesday said they knew the other man and gave different accounts of him: some saying he had been known to start fights, while others said he was not a troublemaker.
Like Sharpe, that man didn't have a steady place to live and used the resources that are clustered in that area just west of downtown Milwaukee, known as the King Park Neighborhood.
An investigation by the Greenfield Police Department is underway, consistent with state law. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who was on the scene Tuesday, will review the completed investigation, routine for fatal encounters with law enforcement.
One of Sharpe’s friends, Emannuel King, said Wednesday he thought police overreacted to the fight. He acknowledged Sharpe was armed with knives, but said officers could have settled it differently. As for the video, King said he wants to see more than just one body cam released so far by Columbus police.
“They will put out what they want, shading the view,” he said. “What about the other officers' video and other video on the street?”
King said he was grateful to the agencies clustered in the area who help people like him and Sharpe.
"We are all on our way to get a steady place to live. That is what they are about here," he said.
Residents feel different emotions about the King Park neighborhood
People who live around the 21-acre King Park said Wednesday they felt conflicted by the events that thrust their neighborhood into the national spotlight.
Several said they didn't think Sharpe should have been shot, but they also lamented the growing population of people without stable housing staying in their neighborhood.
"Was there another way, any other way?" one resident asked, after watching the video. "It feels like he didn't have to die."
This resident, like the others interviewed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Wednesday, asked that their names not be used out of concern over possible retaliation from police and also from the people who use resources in the neighborhood.
Another resident agreed Sharpe didn't deserve to die, but he said quality of life in the King Park neighborhood has been affected by the increased number of people living in tents nearby.
"Come back at night, and it's music blaring all night, people coming in my yard," he said. "I had to change what room I sleep in my house just to get some sleep."
Another man said he was considering putting up a fence around his yard because people are coming into his yard so often but he also feels for the people who don't have a stable place to live. He can see both sides of the issue.
"You can't be mad because they are people in need and they need to go somewhere. And at the same time, it is hard to be a homeowner right here," he said.
And he also sees two sides to what happened Tuesday afternoon.
"I feel like these people need help because mental health is real. And the police's job is to protect the public. A knife is a deadly weapon. A normal person doesn't pull a knife on someone. You do that, you just raised the bar," he said.
After looking at the body cam video, the resident said it looked like it will probably be ruled a lawful shooting. But he said the important thing now it to focus on possible solutions.
"One bad decision cost him his life. That's messed up. We can't bring him back, but what can we learn from this?"
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee neighborhood grapples with Sharpe shooting, homelessness surge
