Wisconsin governor activates National Guard after police shooting sparks unrest

Wisconsin’s governor activated the National Guard on Sunday after an angry crowd set fire to buildings and attacked police cars in response to a police shooting in Milwaukee.

The unrest began after police shot and killed a man who officials said was armed. Officers pulled over a “suspicious vehicle” on Saturday afternoon, according to Milwaukee’s mayor, and two people fled the vehicle and ran in different directions.

A Milwaukee officer who had been with the department for six years chased one of the men, an unidentified 23-year-old.

The officer “ordered that individual to drop his gun,” Mayor Tom Barrett said in a televised news conference. “He did not drop his gun. He held the gun — or I should say I don’t know that for a fact, but he had the gun with him — and the officer fired seven times.”

The man was hit twice, in the chest and in the arm, Barrett said, adding that the unidentified officer had a body camera that was “operating” during the shooting. The shooting will be examined by state investigators, he said.

The man’s death touched a nerve in a city that is among the most racially segregated in the nation. The 2014 shooting of Dontre Hamilton -- a black man who had fought with an officer who had roused him from a park bench -- led to protests but no charges for the officer, who was fired for improperly escalating the situation.

After word of the latest shooting had spread late Saturday, some members of a gathering crowd began to throw stones and set buildings on fire.

Milwaukee police said gunshots by members of the public prevented fire officials from putting out fires at the local businesses, and one officer was hospitalized after someone threw a brick through the window of a squad car and hit an officer in the head, police said.

Members of the crowd also threw rocks at police, police said, and chased off journalists with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, shoving and punching one journalist, the newspaper reported. At least one car was burned.

By Sunday afternoon, Republican Gov. Scott Walker, at the request of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, activated the state’s national guard to support local law enforcement in case of further unrest.

“I commend the citizens who volunteered in clean-up efforts this morning,” Walker said in a statement. “This act of selfless caring sets a powerful example for Milwaukee’s youth and the entire community. I join Milwaukee’s leaders and citizens in calling for continued peace and prayer.”

President Obama, who was golfing in Martha’s Vineyard on Sunday, has been briefed on the unrest, and a top advisor, Valerie Jarrett, has been in touch with Milwaukee’s mayor to offer support, according to a White House pool report.

matt.pearce@latimes.com