MADISON, Wis. – On Monday, a Wisconsin prosecutor announced that Ohio police officers involved in a deadly shooting last summer near the Republican National Convention were not criminally liable.
Columbus, Ohio officers were among many from different regions tasked with enhancing security for the July event in Milwaukee.
In a letter addressed to Columbus Division of Police Chief Elane Bryant, Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern explained that on July 16, a group of 14 Columbus officers were gathered for a briefing in a park near the convention center when they witnessed 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe approaching another individual while holding a knife in each hand. Sharpe was shot after refusing to drop the weapons and charging at the other person.
The shooting was not connected to the convention, but people in the neighborhoods around the park questioned how out-of-state police could justify killing a Wisconsin resident.
Lovern wrote in the letter that Wisconsin law allows someone to use deadly force to protect someone else if that person believes it’s necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. The five officers who fired on Sharpe told investigators they believed Sharpe meant to seriously injure or kill the other man, Lovern wrote.
Officers could be heard on body camera footage before the shooting identifying themselves as police and ordering Sharpe to drop his knives, but Sharpe ignored them and continued toward the man, Lovern said.
A voicemail left with the Columbus Division of Police’s public information office seeking comment on Lovern’s decision wasn’t immediately returned.
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