(The Center Square) – Milwaukee’s mayor says parents and young people must do better after a chaotic and violent Fourth of July weekend that resulted in two officers being injured.
Police say a shooting suspect hit an officer with a car while speeding away from a takeover along Water Street. That officer is expected to be okay, though police say they shot and wounded the speeding driver.
The second officer was hurt a few hours earlier during a chaotic scene along Brady Street. Investigators say it looks like someone fired a homemade firework into the street where the officer was walking.
"I saw some of those events and was made aware of them, and as I've said, everything begins at home," Mayor Cavalier Johnson told reporters in Milwaukee. "I don't know what's going on in the heads, in the minds, of some of these folks out here misbehaving the way that they are. I'd imagine their parents have a lot of shame in the way that they're behaving on the streets. I certainly do. It's just sad."
Johnson said it's never okay to put police officers in danger.
Milwaukee has been dealing with violence and chaos along Water and Brady Streets for years. The two streets are part of the city's busy tourist and bar area, and they have seen street takeovers or violent crowds in the past.
Earlier this year, Milwaukee's city council voted to shut down the city's food trucks at 10pm as a way to end some of the chaos along Water Street. The city passed a new ordinance, but that ordinance is on hold as a lawsuit works its way through the courts.
The mayor didn't say whether the food truck rules would have done anything to stem the chaos over the holiday weekend, but he did say more tickets and arrests likely wouldn't have helped.
"This is beyond a policing thing," the mayor said. "I don't want to put this at the feet of the police department. Those folks that go down there to cause problems, they make a decision to do that."
Milwaukee Police say they arrested the shooting suspect who they say ran down an officer. There's no word about an arrest or even a suspect in the firework explosion that left the second officer injured.
