MILWAUKEE — A jury today rejected claims that the Milwaukee Police Department violated the rights of two Milwaukee residents by unlawfully arresting them after a protest mourning the fatal police shooting of Syville Smith in 2016.
Jarrett English and a second plaintiff were arrested on August 30, 2016, after Milwaukee Police shut down a gathering of people who had been mourning and protesting the shooting of Smith in the Sherman Park neighborhood.
The ACLU of Wisconsin, with cooperating counsel A Steven Porter, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the two in the Federal District Court in 2019. The suit alleged that their rights to freedom of assembly and expression and to be free from unlawful arrest were violated when Milwaukee Police arrested them for simply being in the area after a police operation forced people to leave the site of Smith’s memorial. Milwaukee Police, in riot gear, encountered the plaintiffs at separate locations blocks from the memorial site, ordered them to go, and then arrested them without explanation, even though they were not engaged in any illegal activity.
“We’re extremely disappointed that the Milwaukee Police Department evaded accountability in this instance. MPD was given a free pass for falsely arresting two people who hadn’t done anything wrong. Allowing police to abuse their authority to disperse a crowd and indiscriminately arrest people at or near a protest is a bad sign for our First Amendment rights. Unfortunately, it is all too common to see police escape accountability when they violate the rights of those they are meant to be protecting and serving,” said Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “While the outcome disheartens us, we will continue to fight to protect the rights of all Wisconsinites to protest.”