MILWAUKEE, Dec. 16 (UPI) — A former Wisconsin police officer who fatally shot a man during a routine patrol this summer has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide.
Former Milwaukee officer Dominque Heaggan-Brown was charged Thursday for the controversial Aug. 13 shooting, which resulted in the death of Sylville Smith.
According to charging documents, Smith was running away from Heaggan-Brown and his partner in downtown Milwaukee while carrying a semiautomatic handgun. Moments later, they say, he raised his hands in the air and tossed the gun away.
Around that moment, Heaggan-Brown shot Smith once in the arm, forcing him to the ground. As the 23-year-old man lay on the ground, unarmed and with a non-lethal gunshot wound, the ex-officer stood over him and fired a second and fatal shot into his chest, the criminal complaint says.
The patrolling officers said they stopped to question Smith because they believed he may have been conducting a drug transaction. He began to run when the officers stopped.
Heaggan-Brown said he fired a second time because he thought Smith was trying to reach into his waistband — a claim rejected by prosecutors.
“This is but the first step in holding that officer accountable, but a necessary step in bringing some measure of justice,” Smith’s family said in a statement. “We always believed that Sylville should be alive today, and that this rogue officer was completely wrong. … Justice is needed for our family.”
The charges are based partly on footage from body cameras that Heaggan-Brown and another officer were wearing. It’s only the second time in the city’s modern history that an on-duty police officer faces charges of murder.
Smith’s death instigated aggressive protests in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park in the days after the incident.
Heaggan-Brown was fired from the police force in October and jailed due to unrelated criminal charges, WISN-TV reported. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday.
Heaggan-Brown’s attorney said he will fight the charge.
“There’s plenty to work with just within the four corners of the complaint,” defense attorney Steve Kohn said.
If convicted, Heaggan-Brown, 24, could be sentenced to 60 years in prison.
