Police and members of the community gather at the site of a shooting death of a homeless man near the site of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on the second day of the event on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images via AFP

Ohio police officers in Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention shot and killed a man who was wielding two knives near the convention, Milwaukee’s police chief said on July 16.

Five members of the Columbus, Ohio, police department fired on the man, who had a knife in each hand, refused police commands and charged at an unarmed man before police fired, Milwaukee Chief Jeffrey Norman said at a news conference. Two knives were recovered from the scene, the chief said.

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Police released body camera footage that showed officers on bikes talking before one of them says, “He’s got a knife.”

Several officers then yell “Drop the knife!” as they run toward two men standing in a street. When the armed man moved toward the unarmed man, police fired their weapons.

“Someone’s life was in danger,” Norman said. “These officers, who were not from this area, took it upon themselves to act and save someone’s life today.”

Thousands of officers from multiple jurisdictions are in Milwaukee providing additional security for the convention that began Monday and concludes Thursday.

The shooting fueled anger from residents who questioned why out-of-state officers were in their neighborhood located about a mile from the convention site.

The Columbus Division of Police, as well as the chief of staff for Milwaukee’s mayor and a spokesperson for the convention’s joint command center, all said there was nothing to suggest the shooting was related to the convention itself.

A cousin and others identified the man killed as 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe.

Milwaukee residents and activists quickly converged on the site of the shooting, many of them expressing outrage about the involvement of a police department in town because of the convention. They held a nighttime vigil.

“They came into our community and shot down our family right here at a public park,” said Linda Sharpe, a cousin of the man who was killed. “What are you doing in our city, shooting people down?”

Sharpe said her cousin lived in a tent encampment across the street from King Park, where the shooting occurred.

Residents said the encampment was a long-standing feature of the neighbourhood, which is home to several social service clinics and a shelter. Some said Milwaukee police officers are familiar with many of those living in the tents and might have been able to deescalate the situation.

David Porter, who said he knew Sharpe and is also homeless, was angry that officers from outside of Milwaukee were in his neighborhood.

“If MPD would have been there, that man would still be alive right now,” Porter said, referring to Milwaukee police.

Norman, the Milwaukee chief, said 13 officers who were part of a bicycle patrol from Columbus were within their assigned zone having a meeting when they saw the altercation.

“The officers observed a subject armed with a knife in each hand, engaged in an altercation with another unarmed individual,” Norman said. They only fired after the armed man ignored multiple commands and moved toward the unarmed man, the chief said.

“This is a situation where somebody’s life was in immediate danger,” Norman said.

The Columbus Division of Police has received attention because of its special unit deployed to Milwaukee that works to improve police-community relationships and had a visible role in guiding the largely uneventful protests on Monday.

The shooting happened near King Park, roughly a mile from the convention center, where a small group of protesters gathered before marching on Monday. That demonstration was followed by dozens of Columbus police officers, wearing blue vests that read: “Columbus Police Dialogue.”

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office said an autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, is now one of Trump’s fiercest allies and defenders and among those short-listed to be Trump’s vice presidential pick.
| Photo Credit: AP

J.D. Vance appeared on the scene of American public life with his 2016 best-seller memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. President Barack Obama cited it while explaining the cultural and economic reasons that made the disruptive politics championed by Donald Trump appealing to the white working class. Mr. Vance, then 32, was a strong critic of Mr. Trump, who he said was unfit to be the President of the U.S. Two weeks shy of 40, Mr. Vance — now a U.S. Senator from Ohio — will be among the star speakers at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and has become the running mate of Mr. Trump. Today, Mr. Vance has emerged as a frontrunner to inherit the former’s America First politics.

Mr. Vance’s book portrayed the crisis of the white working class from his personal vantage point, and in the years that followed, he presented himself as someone who overcame that crisis through faith and hard work. He was once an atheist but gradually moved towards faith and in 2019, he baptised and became a Catholic. He told an interviewer that he “spent a lot of his life buying into the lie that you had to be stupid to be a Christian.”

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Defining politics

Speaking at a conservative conference in Detroit, Michigan, on June 16, he called for defining politics in terms of what it stands for, not merely what it stands against. “We stand for an American nation built by American people, American workers,” he said. “We have to see the problem and find the solution. Make more of the stuff that we need in our own country. That is the solution. Twenty million people who have no business to be here, are here, because of Joe Biden. The solution is to deport each one of them.”

“America is not an idea as Democrats say. Seven generations of my family, from the Civil War to the 21st century are connected to this land. We are not just an idea, this is our home. That is the single principle at stake in this election.”

In an interview with Steve Bannon, a fellow traveller, during his Senate campaign in 2022, he said: ‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.’

As a strong votary of America First politics Mr. Vance is preferred by the nationalist base of the Republican Party. In a straw poll at the Turning Point convention in Detroit, 43% preferred him as Vice President on Mr. Trump’s ticket, which was three times the support for the next popular candidate.

From being a strong critic of Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance transformed himself into an ardent supporter and moved to the centre stage of U.S. politics as a highly visible and articulate lawmaker. “When Donald Trump was President, there was peace around the world. Now, there is a conflict in every corner of the world,” he told the Detroit gathering. Young, sharp and articulate, Mr. Vance presents himself as someone who is more structured, coherent and methodical than his leader.

Mr. Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri, his former Yale Law School classmate. “Like Mr. Obama, he is also a writer and a story teller,” a Democrat who served in the Obama administration said. “He’s a leader to watch.”