No charges for officer who shot man 14 times

A white Milwaukee police officer won’t face charges in the April shooting death of a mentally ill black man, the local prosecutor investigating the case said Monday.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced that former officer Christopher Manney would not be charged for shooting Dontre Hamilton because he was acting in self-defense.

“This was a tragic incident for the Hamilton family and for the community,” Chisholm said in a report. “But, based on all the evidence and analysis presented in this report, I come to the conclusion that Officer Manney’s use of force in this incident was justified self-defense and that defense cannot be reasonably overcome to establish a basis to charge Officer Manney with a crime.”

{mosads}Manney was called to perform a welfare check on Hamilton. He said he and Hamilton struggled, and that Hamilton struck Manney with the officer’s baton, according to The Associated Press. He then shot Hamilton 14 times in four seconds.

Hamilton’s family said that he was schizophrenic, and that he had stopped taking medication for the disorder before the incident, the AP reported.

Manney was fired in October because he did not follow department procedure in the moments before the shooting.

The decision comes at a time when tensions are running high between police departments and civil rights activists across the country.

New York City is reeling from the killing of two police officers over the weekend by a man who might have been motivated by anger over the deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., both black men killed by white police officers.

The lack of indictments in the Garner and Brown cases drew condemnation from lawmakers, as did the decision not to charge Manney.

“This decision is just one of many in recent weeks that continue to perpetuate a disheartening notion that there is a significant lapse in accountability for reckless officers and the behavior they employ in our communities,” said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.).