Page 30 - Florida Sentinel 6-23-17

Memoriam
National
Officer Who Fatally Shot Sylville Smith Acquitted Of Homicide Charge
BIRTHDAY MEMORIAM
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Milwaukee jury on Wednes- day acquitted a former police officer of first-degree reckless homicide in the shootingof a black man last year that ig- nited riots on the city’s north side.
Jurors found that Do- minique Heaggan-Brown, who is also black, was justified when he shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith after a brief foot chase following a traffic stop Aug. 23. Smith had a gun when he ran, but the case hinged on whether he was a threat when Heaggan- Brown fired the shot that killed him.
Body-camera video showed Heaggan-Brown shooting Smith once in the arm as he appeared to be throwing the gun over a fence. The video showed the second shot — 1.69 seconds later — hit Smith in the chest as he lay on the ground.
Right to left: Former Milwaukee police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown; and Sylville Smith.
Prosecutors argued Smith was defenseless at the time of the second shot be-
cause he had thrown the gun over the fence. Defense attor- neys argued Heaggan- Brown had to act quickly to defend himself.
Heaggan-Brown was fired from the police force in October after being charged with sexual assault in an un- related case. The sexual as- sault case was not mentioned during the trial because it is being handled separately and knowledge of it could preju- dice the jury.
the surface long-simmering tensions between black Mil- waukee residents and police, and demonstrators assembled near the site of the shooting in Sherman Park hours after it happened.
Two nights of riots fol- lowed, with protesters throw- ing rocks, bricks, and bottles at police officers. The protest- ers burned eight businesses and a police car and when it was over, 40 demonstrators had been arrested and a handful of officers hurt.
Smith’s death brought to
White Roommate Finally Arrested
In Death Of Engineering Student
LAS VEGAS —- Las Vegas police have confirmed that the man accused of stabbing his roommate, Clifton Tay- lor, 25, to death in May has been arrested in California.
Highway Patrol troopers took Zachary Drey, 25, into custody at a gas station near Indio last Friday night. He will be held without bail on a single charge of being a fugi- tive from justice until he can be extradited back to Las Vegas.
He had a warrant out for him on charges of murder and robbery with a deadly weapon. Taylor, the victim, was a computer engineering student serving as the presi- dent of UNLV’s National So- ciety of Black Engineers
Clifton Taylor was fatally stabbed by his white roommate, Zachary Drey.
chapter.
He was stabbed on May
31 in his apartment and Drey was named as a sus- pect early on. According to reports he had called a family member and admitted to the killing.
Detectives found Taylor dead in the bathtub. He had suffered significant stab wounds. Police think that the killing took place in another room and that Drey had at- tempted to clean up the scene.
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