MILWAUKEE -- City leaders blamed outside agitators Monday after a second night of violence wracked Milwaukee's mostly black north side in protest over the fatal shooting of a black man by police.
An 18-year-old man was shot and wounded in the neck during Sunday night's unrest, which was less destructive than Saturday night's confrontation but still left the city tense. Mayor Tom Barrett singled out groups of young people on the streets of the Sherman Park neighborhood who he said were intent on causing trouble.
"Those individuals, in my mind, are deliberately trying to damage a great neighborhood in a great city," Barrett said at a news conference Monday.
Barrett warned parents and guardians that police would strictly enforce the city's 10 p.m. curfew for teenagers.
"This is not the place where you go to gawk, this is not the place where you go to take pictures," he said. "This is not the place where you go to drive your car around."
Later Monday, Barrett issued a proclamation applying the curfew to 17-year-olds. Until then, it had applied to teenagers age 16 or younger.
The unrest began Saturday afternoon after a black police officer shot and killed a black man after a traffic stop. Police say 23-year-old Sylville Smith was fleeing and had a stolen handgun when he was shot; they say body-camera footage clearly shows him holding the weapon.
Gov. Scott Walker on Sunday put the National Guard on standby, but so far no Guard members have been deployed.
Both Barrett and Police Chief Edward Flynn credited church groups and "many others" for staging peaceful demonstrations, prayers and vigils earlier Sunday, as well as volunteers who turned out to sweep and pick up debris after Saturday night's violence.
Flynn accused a Chicago chapter of the Revolutionary Communist Party of upending what had until then been a peaceful night by leading marchers down several blocks around 11:30 p.m.
The group said in a statement later Monday that some of its members did attend what it called a "righteous rebellion" to "support a revolution" but didn't set out to cause trouble.
Reached by phone, party co-founder Carl Dix said he wasn't in Milwaukee but confirmed that several party supporters from Chicago traveled the 90 miles north to protest against police, whom he blamed for both Smith's death and the subsequent violent protests. It was not clear how many members of the group went to Milwaukee.
"This system sees police wantonly murdering people as part of the normal order of things," Dix said. His group, which was founded in 1975 with a focus on issues affecting black Americans, advocates dismantling the police.
TV footage showed a small group of protesters walking or running through the streets, sometimes toppling orange construction barriers. Fourteen people were arrested.
Four Milwaukee officers were injured, including two who had glass fragments in their eyes after concrete was thrown through the glass of their squad car, Flynn said. He also said three sheriff's deputies were injured by bricks and rocks thrown at their bodies.
Flynn said a riot helmet worn by one officer had a "graze wound to the back of it, probably from a firearm."
Three police cars were damaged, and one store had its windows broken, police said. Authorities said their ShotSpotter system, which tracks gunshots, was activated 30 times.
"This was not an evening of insignificant risk for our officers," Flynn said. "But I am grateful to report, and they would be proud to know, that they successfully protected the community last night."
Flynn added that though police came under fire Sunday night, "none of our officers returned fire."
The 18-year-old Milwaukee man who was shot and wounded in Sunday night's violence was taken to a hospital by a police armored vehicle. Flynn said the man "doesn't seem to be in medical danger." Police didn't say who shot the man, but they said they were looking for suspects.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating Smith's death, as required by state law for police-involved shootings. Barrett said he hoped the officer's body-camera video could be released soon.
Police cited Smith's "lengthy criminal record" as they identified him. Online court records showed a range of offenses that were mostly misdemeanors. In a more serious case, Smith was accused in a shooting last year and charged with recklessly endangering safety, a felony.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Smith was subsequently accused of pressuring the victim to recant statements that identified him as the gunman and was charged with trying to intimidate a witness. The charges were dropped because the victim recanted the identification and failed to appear in court, Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern told the newspaper Sunday.
Smith's sister, Kimberley Neal, said while attending Sunday night's vigil that the family wants prosecutors to charge the officer who shot him.
Nearly 40 percent of Milwaukee's 600,000 residents are black, and they are heavily concentrated on the north side. In some predominantly black neighborhoods, some people argued that the killing was yet another outgrowth of what they believe are exceedingly aggressive and misguided police tactics in the city.
"Every time somebody gets shot, they put them on desk duty and then you don't hear no more about it," said Eddie Robinson, 63, a retired security guard. "Did they get charged for it? Was it a rifle shooting? They never tell the community nothing. So it looks bad. It looks like they can just kill you and get away with it. Even if that's not the facts, that's what it looks like."
Information for this article was contributed by Kyle Potter of The Associated Press; by Kay Nolan and Alan Blinder of The New York Times; and by Mark Berman of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/16/2016